Many [female rats] were unable to carry pregnancy to full term or to survive delivery of their litters if they did. An even greater number, after successfully giving birth, fell short in their maternal functions. Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism and from frenetic overactivity to a pathological withdrawal from which individuals would emerge to eat, drink and move about only when other members of the community were asleep. The social organization of the animals showed equal disruption. [...]

It is more than obvious that the two parties represent the two ends of the spectrum and you are not going to eliminate the behavioral sink party until you eliminate behavioral sinks. And efforts to change behavior by politics are for the most part useless. And I might add counterproductive.

The party that claims to be so in touch with natural law is for the most part ignorant of it.

Here is an article that discusses the issue from a thermodynamic viewpoint.

What people leave out of the Weimar experience and IMO its foundation is the lack of men – killed in the war. We are doing something similar with our divorce laws. And our drug war on the Black Community.

And the 60s? Similar. Look up the M/F ratios.

When there are not enough men you get loose women. Culture dives when the M/F ratio is out of whack.

I'm still miffed that the leftist media was able to quietly flip the color assignments from the Reagan-era blue for Rep and red for Dem. Red has always been associated with socialism and war-game opposing forces. Maybe they will quietly flip it back before the next election, hoping party-switching voters won't notice, in an attempt at damage control for Obama-care, Benghazi-gate, IRS-gate, AP-gate, F&F-gate, NSA-gate, DoD-purge, QE-infinity, Putin-pump, etc. Or, they could admit the two-party paradigm is headed for oblivion and use only purple.

MSimon wrote:It is more than obvious that the two parties represent the two ends of the spectrum

The ends of the spectrum? Hardly.

The behavior of rats and mice does not translate directly to human behavior. Take those studies with a huge grain of salt.

The behavior of rats does translate into political behavior inside the Beltway. Lots of squealing, lots of fighting over trivial and not so trivial things, and they foul everything they can't consume or control.

(Or am I perhaps being too kind to the rats in thinking that?)

When opinion and reality conflict - guess which one is going to win in the long run.

Both Parties argue from the perspective of "right and wrong". We might have calmer politics if they realized that --> Both political parties are right about the proper way to live. In their ecological niches.

The Party that comes closest to that ideal is the Libertarians. i.e. LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE because it is impossible to make rules that can cover every ecological niche. One size does not fit all. ObamaCare(less) teaches that. If only both Parties had the wit to learn the CORE lesson.

Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

And the biggest flag on those hills is the abortion question. So no. Humans don't eat their own or throw them into fires (there was a culture/religion based on that at one time - supposedly). But the Ds are ardent champions of abortion and the Rs are ardently against it. Abortion reduces crowding. Reproduction fills empty spaces.

Different ecological niches. And the two sides are so immersed in their niches that they can't raise their heads above their personal situations to see how (and why) the other half lives.

If you look at the rise of the Nazis you will see a similar disconnect. The Nazis represented the rural folk who were appalled at the 'dysfunction' of the cities. Their call for lebensraum was an acknowledgement of their rural roots. Their desire to clear the "inferior" races from the lands they wished to expand to was of course a crime against humanity. But they did get the deep desires behind such a move.

If you want to go back further in history look at the Maccabees of Israel. The Chanukah story. The rurals rose up against the city folk. Not just against the Romans.

Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.